How does the Indian Culture view the difference? I wanted to share my perspective as one of South Indian Origin and having recently traveled to South India. I have been a life long vegetarian and recently been exploring a vegan life-style.

Travel
When I boarded my Cathay Pacific long-haul flight from San Francisco to India, I noticed that Cathay offered a variety of vegetarian options. They included an Asian Vegetarian, an Indian Vegetarian, Western Vegan etc. I wanted to know if the Indian Vegetarian was vegan. They couldn’t tell me. I went ahead and ordered it to check it out. I believe the first meal I ate was vegan, I was not sure about the rice, so I passed on that. I found that the salad, the fruit, and the curry (potato curry and a garbanzo curry) were all vegan. I passed on the butter spread. I noticed that even the creamer was non-dairy on this leg. On the next leg, I was not as lucky. The main dish was a Palak Paneer which had cottage cheese in it, the creamer this time around was also dairy based, I got 2 slices of Naan Bread and I was pretty sure that it was toasted with butter.

On my domestic travel in India, I chose the Indian Railways. At the train station in Bangalore, I noticed that I could get a number of cold drinks that were vegan (fruit juices, soda) but the options for hot drinks were zero. The coffee was pre-mixed with milk and sugar and so too was the chai tea. For snacks there was plenty of fresh fruit (try the delicious sapota) but processed food vegan options were zero or pretty close to it. The caterers could not tell me if it had any animal based products. Some of them looked at me a bit strangely when I probed them on that.

Family
All of my family are vegetarian, so I thought it would be easy for me. But it turned out to be much harder. While there were plenty of good vegan options, being completely vegan was much harder. In summary I felt like it was easy being a 85% vegan but difficult being 100% vegan.

On my first day in Bangalore, I stayed with my wife’s brother’s family and my sister-in-law a nutrionnist  was my host  and she had silk soy milk on hand. It was easy to get a good vegan coffee. She made dosas (lentil pancakes) for lunch and it was completely vegan, the side dish was a chutney also vegan. It turned out to be a good vegan day.

I visited my in-laws next in Mysore. As soon as I arrived my mother-in-law wanted to give me coffee. Knowing that there wasn’t going to be a vegan option, I politely said no. At dinner was an excellent spread. Again most of it was vegan. There was an excellent salad with sprouted moong beans, fresh onions, cilantro, and pomegranate seeds. It was great. The lentil (toor dal) soup was also completely vegan. The other side dish was a curry made with  Bitter Gourd was also vegan. The Pulka was an vegan. The only things on the table that were not vegan were the dessert which was a diary based and plain yogurt. I didn’t take either of them and my mother-in-law was disappointed and encouraged me to try a little bit of the dessert at least. I gave in to that request.

Next day during lunch she remarked that I was ‘departing from the way of my ancestors. I felt she had trouble relating to what I was trying to do. I decided to give a little lecture on both the health and the ethical factors.  I tried to convinced her that reducing or eliminating milk was going to good for her osteo problems too.

I visited my dad next. I told him that I have stopped milk and yogurt. Most of the meals we prepared together were vegan. One day due to heavy rains, milk was not delivered, so I took the opportunity to introduce soy milk coffee to my dad. I also combined sprouted beans (peas or moong beans) to several dishes while introducing my dad to the nutritional benefits of sprouts.

Friends

We often have friends visiting us. One of our recent visits was from friends of ours at Seattle. They were vegetarian of Indian Origin but not vegan. We got into discussion about vegan diets. One of the arguments put forth was why was I messing with a food tradition that is hundred of years old. Similar argument to Michael Pollan’s eating foods that your grandmother or great grandmother would recognize. I had to point out the differences in the way the cows are raised (their feed, their treatment, growth hormones, antibiotics). I also pointed out that the genetic mutation to digest milk protein was an evolutionary aspect and given the wide range of protein options available to us, it wasn’t essential to have milk.

Cost
Milk costs 50c for 1 quart but Soy Milk is much more expensive order of $2 for regular and about $4 for organic. During my trip I had packed some cartons of Organic Kirkland Soy Milk which was much cheaper in the US.

I also found that the cost of eggs and meat was much higher mainly due to the the lack of factory farming. One of my friends told me that the accumulation of milk in dairies were through small (including individual) owners bringing their milk. The primary purpose of the dairy was the pasteurization and the distribution network. Economically more people would eat vegetarian food even though they were omnivores.

Vegan Indian Dishes

Breakfast Options
  Upma – Farina or Rava with boiled vegetables. Varitions with Semolina, broken wheat, oats..
  Pongal – Rice and Split Moong Beans with ginger, black pepper, and cashews.
  Dosa – Lentil and Rice Pancakes. Plenty of variations to get Ragi Dosa, Rava Dosa, Oat Dosa
  Idli – Lentil and Rice Dumplings.
  Oatmeal with Local Fruits (Sapota, Pomegrante, Mango, Guava) and Nuts (Cashews, Peanuts)

Lunch Options
  Main Dishes: Curried Lentil Soups (infinite variations with different vegetables, and curry variations).
  These are called “Sambar’s”, A thinner soup called Rasam is also common. There are over a dozen different
  Rasam options.
  Side Dishes:  Paruppu Sili, Bittergourd Curry, Steamed Beans with Moong Sprouts and boiled
 

Dinner Options
  2 Pulka’s with Garbanzo Bean Curry
  2 Chapatis with cabbage curry
  2 Pooris with Potato Sagoo

 Summary
Travelling in south India is easy for vegetarians. The culture understands this. There are restaurants that are vegetarian. There are plenty of vegan options in the foods. However being a strict vegan is a lot harder since things like ghee (clarified butter) are added during seasoning. Also many of the desserts have diary in them.  Another issue is the lack of labeling to list the ingredients so it is hard to tell what certain dishes actually contain. I did not cover North India, in my opinion the dishes have more diary (eg paneer, kofta cream) and the breads are also seasoned with ghee.